Today in showbiz history if you need something to celebrate with the world ending* and all...
*too dramatic? That's what it feels like lately, is all...
1812 "Grimm's Fairy Tales" is published. They never stop influencing popular culture thereafter.
1880 Broadway gets the nickname "The Great White Way" when it's first lit up by electricity
1892 Phileas Fog completes his trip 'round the globe in the novel Around the World in Eighty Days (later adapted to the screen)
1898 Irene Dunne, one of the greatest actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age was born on this day in Kentucky. She went on to five leading actress nominations (my favorite is The Awful Truth, 1937) without ever winning.
WHY THAT'S A BIG DEAL IN OSCAR HISTORY IS REVEALED AFTER THE JUMP...
Only Deborah Kerr received more leading actress nominations without a competitive win than Dunne with six. Annette Bening could tie for third place in this particular list if she is nominated this year. If you must have lists ('yes, we must,' I hear you shout in unison!)... it goes like so. (Asterisks indicate honorary Oscars)
1915 Australia troops are evacuated from Gallipoli during World War I. Have you ever seen Peter Weir's acclaimed war drama Gallipoli (1981) starring a very young Mel Gibson?
1919 Gloria Swanson weds the second of her six husbands
1920 The German actress Bruni Löbel is born and goes on to a super long career including co-starring with Montgomery Clift in The Big Lift thirty years later
1921 The wonderful director George Roy Hill, whose classics include The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, A Little Romance, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, is born in Minneapolis
1933 Flying Down to Rio opens in New York City
1946 It's a Wonderful Life gets a charity showing in New York the day before its "official" premiere
1950 Harvey starring Jimmy Stewart premieres
1952 Logan's Run beauty Jenny Agutter (last seen in a spiffy cameo in Captain America: Winter Soldier) is born in Somerset England
1960 Director Kim Ki-Duk (Spring Summer Fall Winter... and Spring) is born in South Korea
1962 The Osmond Brothers make their first appearance on the Andy Williams Show
1965 The Beach Boys release "Barbara Ann"
1966 Sand Pebbles is released. The Robert Wise picture is nominated for 8 Oscars but wins nothing.
1967 The Graduate, an instant then enduring classic, premieres.
1974 The Godfather Part II opens. It wins Best Picture just like Part I did two years prior.
1981 Dreamgirls opens on Broadway. It goes on to win 6 Tonys but loses Best Musical to Nine which wins only 5. They both become Oscar movies in the Aughts (though not Best Picture nominees) but only Dreamgirls is a hit in its big screen version.
1983 Two time Oscar nominee Jonah Hill (yes, it's still weird to type that) is born in Los Angeles
1985 The cult sci-fi drama Enemy Mine (with Dennis Quaid) hits theaters but it's no match for twin Oscar titans and smash hits that had opened two days before on a Wednesday: Out of Africa and The Color Purple
1987 Barbra Streisand's ill fated Nuts premieres
1991 Oliver Stone's JFK opens. It receives 8 oscar nominations and 2 wins (Cinematography + Editing)
1996 Scream hits theaters. I saw it opening night next to a guy I was about to fall in love with (and several other friends - a group outing) and I was so embarrassed at how scared I was while everyone else was laughing. Do you remember your first time with this one?
2002 Gangs of New York hits theaters. Inexplicably goes on to receive 10 Oscar nominations even though it's one of Scorsese's worst
2007 Queen Elizabeth becomes the oldest monarch ever to reign in the UK, surpassing Queen Victoria (who died at 81 years of age), months after Helen Mirren wins the Oscar for playing her.
2009 The very talented Brittany Murphy (Clueless, Girl Interrupted) dies suddenly at only 32 years of age. She had been largely absent from movie theaters since one of her very best performances as the titular doomed girl in the female ensemble drama The Dead Girl (2006).
2019 Rumored release date of the movie version of Wicked. We'll believe it when we see it.